Since smartphones hit Japan a few years ago, there’s been no stopping the social networking services (SNS) explosion. While there are plenty of prolific Vine and Instagram posters, the Twitter and Facebook addicts reign supreme.
Facebook has been around for quite some time now, but it’s still going strong. It’s great for staying connected with friends, “Facebook stalking” old high school boyfriends and sharing photos. There are downsides to Facebook though, mainly those people who post statuses that you really don’t care about and/or drive you nuts.
We questioned some Japanese people to see what kind of posts make them want to block their Facebook friends. Today we present to you the top 10 most common Facebook irritants for Japanese people.
10. Statuses that boast about working late into the night
Japanese people are known for working lots of overtime, but not everyone does it and no one really cares if you have to do it. So, if you post, “Today I worked all through the night, it was so tough!” don’t expect any real pity, and if anything, expect to have lost a few followers, or at least have all of your subsequent posts hidden from view.
9. People who seem proud about doing DQN things (minor crimes)
“Drunk driving now! lol” The Internet is not laughing, buddy. In fact, a lot people don’t support your stupid behavior, so you’re not only endangering lives, you’re losing Facebook friends. Unless your friends are equally DQN, in which case you should probably go ahead and tag them in your photos and save the police some time.
8. Posts featuring photos of delicious food, but no mention of the name of the restaurant
We all have that friend who is a food tease. The one who writes, “This ○○○ is so good!” as a caption to a picture of a ridiculously delicious looking meal. But where did they get it? Which restaurant is it from? Please, tell us so we can go eat some too.
7. People who say bad things about people they don’t really know
Really, this should be “People who say bad things about other people in general,” but it gets especially sticky if Person A writes something bad about Person B on Facebook, not knowing that Person C is friends with both A and B, so then Person B finds out, etc. Drama, drama, drama. Just don’t write bad things about people on the Internet, guys, you never know who will be able to read it.
6. Poems
Apparently, a lot of Japanese netizens are not fans of Facebook status poems. They especially don’t like those poems that make the person seem really aware, in-touch with Earth and their inner self, because the poems often turn out looking like serial cryptic messages. They’re making some people feel uncomfortable.
5. Posts/invitations to third-party SNS, unwanted games and iffy links
You don’t have to be a Facebook user in Japan to empathize with this one. Some people get annoyed when they receive multiple invitations from the same person to play a game or use an application that they don’t want to be involved with. Do these app users simply not care how much spam they’re sending in their friends’ direction? Do they just not get that not everyone cares about colored gems and virtual towns?
4. Posts talking about (successful) dates
Single Japanese netizens are not happy with their friends who post pictures or write statuses about fun dates and how wonderful their love-life is. Valentine’s Day must have been hard for this crowd.
3. That one friend who shares every single viral video or joke that exists on the Internet
You know those joke videos that scare you at the end, or those posts you’ve already seen around your news feed a few times? Some people seem to share those repeatedly. Many Japanese people have come to the conclusion that this kind of behavior justifies prompt blocking.
2. Political opinions
Of course it is important to stay in touch with the news and politics, but a majority of Japanese users feel quite firmly that Facebook is not the medium on which you should share your political views, and that doing so is just cause for a swift blocking.
1. Gross images (such as war or disaster photos)
The Japanese netizens have spoken and although they think it’s okay to talk about topics of war, violence or catastrophe once in a while, they don’t really like grotesque images popping up on their news feeds in-between pictures of their friend’s wedding and sister’s new baby. Again, many don’t think Facebook is the right place for overly serious stuff.
These kinds of posts can definitely get annoying and can cause for some cringing and grimacing while scrolling through the good ol’ news feed, but are they really so irritating that they warrant the perpetrator being blocked?
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© Japan Today
30 Comments
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TrevorPeace1
They're cringing in person, so why wouldn't they be cringing on a fatuous ego-driven web server? Facebook should rename itself to Faceless.
Theo Lubbe
I think many of these also apply to people who aren't Japanese. I could identify with finding most of those annoying.
Especially those 'successful date' posts; so you're happy with someone. Great. I don't want to see you saying the same thing differently 5 times a day or see you sending cringe-worthy messages which really belong in private, in public, every day of the week. C'mon. Get a room.
Wahlman Daniel
Those 10 things also makes me want to block my FB friends. With the exception of #6. It would depend on the type of poem.
Pawel Dawid Syrek
You are using Facebook, deal with it! If those are your friends, what's wrong with this? At least you see their true personality... People love to give away themselves... Poor bastards...
Maria
Alistair Carnell
Facebook, I'm surprised they don't change its name to Foodbook here.
Spanki
Conspiracy theories, links to every single article a person reads on the web, game and app invites and a stream of quotes made by other (famous or not so famous) people is enough to get me to turn you off.
Lac du Torrent
Another thing that can be annoying about posts written by Japanese people are the HYPER loooong "Announcement / 報告" posts !!! I think that's a typical Japanese thing since none of my foreign friends are doing this, but I tend to think that it's too much. Especially if your Japanese friend can speak many languages, then the exact same post will be translated in as many languages they know (sometimes up to 3 different languages!)
I'm always happy knowing what's happening to my friends but I doubt anyone really takes time to read those way-too-long fastidious posts. Except your best friend or family.
papigiulio
ah yeah facebook in Japan, a barrage of food and baby pictures.
nath
This applies to alot of people not only in Japan , but if all people blocked each others for these reasons then fb should be named Blockbook, I think we should be more open minded and accept our differences , it's a natural thing.
FizzBit
So you asked around the RocketNews24 office eh?
dcog9065
The worst Japanese offenders for me are the ones that randomly write out a few sentences of life-advice or "ganbarimasu" type things. Often found when someone starts a job, around New Years, birthdays, etc. The messages are obviously good but every single time it's so cringeworthy it makes me very skeptical of the intentions behind these messages, sometimes being little more than terrible attempts to look like an "adult" or whatever
DiscoJ
I agree with Lac du Torrent. There are many Japanese people who write long and sometimes quite personal comments on FB. Particularly around their love lives and/or desire for children. All very natural and normal things to think, but FB doesn't really seem like an appropriate outlet. They can be serious downers. Compared to those, keep the food and baby/child pics coming!
Lovey-dovey stuff can be annoying too, but it doesn't bother me much.
People posting gore or dead bodies or whatever get hidden immediately.
Lac du Torrent
Yeah, right. Well by "announcement posts" I meant the ones some people write like when they get married, birth of a baby, study abroad, graduation, got a job.....etc. Indeed those are big events in a life and I completeky understand anyone wanna share/boast about it. But the thing is those posts are written in such a serious way (as if it was an official governmental press release !) that it sometimes makes me laugh. Like.... I wanna say "go to the point, geez!", no need to write a 3 pages long essay in japanese/english/french/german.
Well, that's only my personal experience but I see those kind of posts pretty much every month among my twenty-ish year-old jap friends. At first I respected them for taking such time to write a long post but lately I really think that's ridiculous.
Whatsnext
Everyone hates Facebook and complains about it all the time. Why continue using it?
Nakari Amane
Somehow, I don't agree with that. I've some Japanese friends via twitter, they always post poems or song lyrics, and it's fine. I like poems, too. Because of that too, I start to write poems in Japanese, too. This is an example from Twitter, or they'll hate it when someone does it on fb?
DiscoJ
Whatsnext - It's not that bad overall. And in the context of this specific article, the problems being discussed are not problems with Facebook itself, just some of the ways in which people use it. A similar list of 'annoying habits' can be found for mobile phones, emails, blogs, anything.
This is a people thing, not a Facebook thing.
cevin7
When people are showing off something while they're try to hide their doing so, that's what gets on my nerves!
sighclops
Baby / partner photo spam not on the list - genuinely shocked!
bjohnson23
while their may be 10 good reasons to block someone on FB, there is one best solution, don't log on or open an account
Lazybones
I hate those bloody inspirational phrases
papigiulio
Dont forget the "Keep calm... something" image posts. grmbl :(
MrBum
The old stealth/humble brag.
Bruno Xavier
I don't follow people; I only follow pages of interest (like this one) so I never see anything like that in my news feed.
Dan Lewis
You can always "unfollow" someone without blocking them. Maintain friendship status without losing your mind to the banal posts.
Peacetrain
I think if you don't like Facebook, you should just not use it. And in a second you can probably scroll through 6 photos of food anyway.
But here's the thing. If a friend gets married, has a baby, ate something really nice, it doesn't bug me to see a photo about it. I'm happy for them. And if my more serious friend has a post about something political, that's fine too. He or she just might be more concerned about something important rather than videos of drunk people falling over.
Successful dates? If some of my lonely single friends finally had a nice date and fell in love I'd be happy for them.
If they worked through the night - I'd feel sorry for them.
Maybe more people should just Friend the people who they are interested in? Or maybe I'm just a nice guy.
As for poems, nobody on my list has done that yet, but I'd me impressed if they did. If I didn't like the poem I'd just skip over it.
People complain too much. Here's another deep piece of advice. You don't have to watch every show on TV, and you don't have to read every article on Japan Today.
There's this really cool human ability called skimming. Try it.
All in all Facebook is simply a great way of keeping up with people you know. And if they were painful, it's a lot easier skimming over a poem on Facebook then actually meeting them for coffee and not knowing what to say if they wanted to recited all their poems.
Modern people are never happy.
Gaijin Desi
0. If you talked to your friend in Person you will be blocked on Facebook.
Joseph12345
This is individuality talking nothing more or less, People have to accept others as they are, You invited a person as a friend then accept them, if you want to be private, then do not post, Most are proud in what they do and show for those that post foods they are proud they can afford it once in a while, for those that are serious and tired from working should realize others could have a better life and accept they do not have to work so hard or acknowledge that the other person would never allow others to abuse their rights in passing 8 hours, and those that do get the over time should be proud to make extra money to go out for that dinner or have those bills paid, then look at the ones that cannot pay their bills,
in most cases people are still children which I see in Japanese society, it is time to grow up with the rest of the world and acknowledge you are an adult now so do not post anything that you believe should not be commented on or accept the responses,
in a few words, if you do not want to play together then do not have friends, IF YOU CANNOT ACCEPT SOCIETY THEN TURN YOURSELF OFF AND GET OFF FACE BOOK, GROW UP PEOPLE THIS IS LIFE, MANY PEOPLE DO NOT CARE OTHERS DO.
People are who they are, know them if you do not like them give them a pleasant excuse and click them off, do not fight, do not argue and do not say things you would not like because it will come back to you in time. always remember it is always better to be pleasant so it does not bight you in the butt latter.
GOOD LUCK AND GOD BLESS
wtfjapan
Facebook should rename itself to Faceless. LOL yeah just another site for people with no life and too much time on there hands.
Juan Rodriguez
hahahhaha wtfjapan for a moment there I thought you were refering to JT